Using Citation Styles

When listing sources you've used in your research, be sure to use a conventional bibliographic style. Most subject disciplines have a standard style that writers are expected to use. Each style will specify a uniform way of citing sources that will:

1. give an orderly appearance to your bibliography, and
2. provide all the essential elements of information that a reader will need to locate the source.

A citation must include:

• author
• title
• source (publisher and place for books or nonprint materials; periodical title, volume, and pages for articles; URL for Web pages)
• date

  Note: the library has a subsciption to RefWorks - a tool which can save your citations from database and catalog searches and convert them into a bibliography.

Identifying Elements of Citations

Book

Article

Web Page

Infotrac provides examples of how to cite its files.

Citation Style Guides and Manuals

The major guides are listed below. Most of these guides advise writers about citation styles in particular disciplines; The Chicago Manual of Style and A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations are more general. Style requirements and examples for all types of information sources are included. Your professor may ask you to use a specific style.

1. The ACS Style Guide: A Manual For Authors And Editors. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1997.
UM/Science Ref QD8.5.A25 1997

2. The American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors (AMA). Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1998
UM/Science Ref R119.A533 1998

3.The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
UM/Ref. Desk Z253.C57 1993

4. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 6th ed. by Kate Turabian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
UM/Ref. Desk LB2369.T8 1996
UM/Science Ref LB2369.T8 1996

5. Science and technical writing: a manual of style. Edited by Philip Rubens. New York: Routledge, 2001.
UM/Science Ref T11.S378 2001
UM/W.E.B. Du Bois T11.S378 2001

6. Scientific style and format: the CBE manual for authors, editors, and publishers (known as "The CBE Manual"). Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
UM/Science Ref T11.S386 1994

7. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: APA, 2001. UM/Ref. Desk BF76.7 .P83 2001

See also APA Electronic Style (5th edition from Purdue University) or http://www.apastyle.org/elecsource.html (excerpted from the APA)

8. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
UM/Ref. Desk LB2369 .G53 2003

Please Note: If you need information on how to use other general style guides, see Karla's Guide to Standard Citation Styles, by Karla Tonella at the University of Iowa.